QNAP NAS or Upgrade Custom Server?

[Edwood]

Fucking shit, it's only at 22% now. Am I doing something wrong? I did regular format for NTFS, not "quick format".

Yeah, it's quite noisy, mainly because of the whiny ass fan in the hot swap drive enclosure. I might end up swapping that sucker out.

[tkam]

You should have done the quick format, normal formats take forever on large disks, especially when the array is also probably still initializing in the background. I haven't done a normal full NTFS format in years. Any particular reason you didn't want to install Linux on this server? I'm a pretty big fan of Windows but for like a simple as a file-sharing box a stripped down Ubuntu Server or CentOS install would make a ton of sense.

Edited October 4, 2009 by tkam

[Edwood]

Ah, good. So quick format is just as reliable these days?

Linux? I no speaka da Linux. I did Windows because it's easy for me. Perhaps the next revision I might try it. But mainly because I want to use things like Backblaze, TrueCrypt, etc.

[tkam]

The only difference between the quick and normal is that after nuking the partition tables the normal format also runs a scan checking for bad sectors. This of course takes longer the bigger the drive is, and trust me there's a lot of sectors on 2TB drives .

Edited October 4, 2009 by tkam

[Edwood]

I guess scanning for bad sectors is not really necessary for brand new drives, eh?

[Nebby]

I generally like to do a normal format at least once in the lifetime of a drive, but that's mainly due to my own paranoia/habits. For raids it's not really worth the time investment, IMO

[Edwood]

Yeah, I cancelled the Format. Nearly 4 days to format 26%? Fuck that.

Taking forever to cancel the Format too. WTF.

[Nebby]

I'd just hard reboot it and recreate partition/quickformat; but that's just me

Btw, have you taken a look at miniSAS connectors? One cable to connect eight drives, it's so convenient though it requires a card and chassis that supports it.

[Edwood]

Quick Format took only a few minutes. LOL.

No, but I looked at Multi Lane SATA cards, but they are a lot more expensive, and more geared towards external connections. I'd probably end up getting one if I end up getting an NAS case from A-Tech Fabrication and use their External Mass Storage solution. Almost snagged one off of eBay before.

[deepak]

So when do the porn floodgates open for Head-Casers?

[linuxworks]

Edwood,

FreeNAS is really very stable, it's based on FreeBSD. I also like that it can be installed to just about anything even a usb thumbdrive.

I'm a heavy freebsd user.

that said, I did NOT find freenas stable. but that was about a year ago when I tried it. neat idea, but it needed a newer kernel and bsd is just LOUSY on samba (not sure why!).

linux is samba king. linux is a much better fileserver (even for nfs).

[Edwood]

I'm going to encrypt this array with TrueCrypt. Is it safe to do a encrpyt the volume with QuickFormat? I'd rather it not take 12 days to encrypt as it says for full format.

*Edit - nevermind. The bulk of the format process is filling the drive with random data. I guess it's like DBAN'ing an older drive already with data. Since this drive array is brand new, blank, I guess there's no need for a full TrueCrypt format.

[Edwood]

OK, copying files now.

RAID5 + TrueCrypt = Slow as fuck. I'm getting 3-4MB/S write speeds. Read speed is reasonably fast, so since it's just a media drive for watching movies and listening to music off of, it's more than fast enough for that. But for copying files, it's hella slow.

OK, now the real question is, How best to automate back ups of my files.

I currently have two arrays I need to back up.

Each has a separate drive for back up that are not shared for security reasons (files don't get accessed by other users directly on the network, including me) and for being able to back them up via BackBlaze.

So, what's the best way to automate the back up process, time machine style? Is Robocopy still the way to go with Vista?

-Ed

[Currawong]

Excuse the hijack, but I was talking to my friend in Cali about getting a Drobo and he mentioned a friend who works at Promise technology who recommends this. I'm considering it now once I get around to upgrading my MacBook Pro.

[Iron_Dreamer]

I've been using Karen's Replicator for backup for a while now, and I've been really happy with it. I recently got Aaron going on it as well.

BTW why bother encrypting your music/video array?

[Edwood]

Tin foil hat.

cough .... R ..... I ..... A ..... A............. ... M ..... P ..... A ..... A....................

[Grahame]

Oh, its "yours"

[emelius]

i have the qnap ts-509 pro...

i bought it as most reviews have it as faster than even their new models...

& it's easy to upgrade provided you choose a cpu that's compatible with the chipset used (& the hsf clearance has to be adhered to)...the memory can be upgraded to 4GB for ~$70 but it will only see ~3.3GB of that...

anyways...love mine...have 5 x 1.5TB samsungs in there in RAID5 (started out in 6, but felt silly)...the thing runs ubuntu & has a vga port...just plug in a usb keyboard & have at it...